Barbara Walters — journalist with roots in the Russian Empire
Barbara Jill Walters was born in Boston on 25 September 1929, though she sometimes gave her birth year as 1931. Her parents, Dena Seletsky and Lou Walters, were both children of Russian Jewish immigrants. Her connection to the Russian Empire runs through her father's father.
Abraham Isaac Waremwasser, her paternal grandfather, was born in Łódź, in Congress Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, and emigrated to England, where the family name became Warmwater. Her father, Louis Abraham Warmwater, was born in Whitechapel, in the East End of London; sources give his birth year as 1894, 1896 or 1898. He sailed to New York with his father and two brothers, arriving on 28 August 1909, and the family later took the name Walters.
Lou Walters became a booking agent and theatrical producer. In 1937 he opened the Latin Quarter nightclub in Boston with a partner, E. M. Loew, and in 1942 a Latin Quarter on Times Square in New York; in 2006 New York named a nearby street Lou Walters Way.
She joined NBC's Today in the early 1960s as a writer and producer of women's-interest segments. Her popularity with viewers brought her more airtime, and from 1971 she also hosted a local NBC programme, Not for Women Only. When Frank McGee became host of Today that year, he insisted on asking the first questions in joint interviews; only after his death in 1974 was she named co-host, the first woman to hold that title on an American news programme. In 1976 she moved to ABC and became the first woman to co-anchor a network evening news programme. She later co-hosted the news magazine 20/20 and built a reputation for long interviews with heads of state, politicians and celebrities. In 1997 she created The View, a daytime talk programme with a panel of women, which she co-hosted until 2014. She retired from journalism in 2015, having worked since 1951.
Harper's Bazaar twice named her among its hundred women of accomplishment, in 1967 and 1971, and she received a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. She died at her home in Manhattan on 30 December 2022, aged ninety-three.
"Paternal grandfather Abraham Isaac Waremwasser left Łódź for London, where the family became Warmwater; her father, born in London, reached New York with his father and two brothers on 28 August 1909."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Łódź, Piotrków Governorate, Congress Poland (paternal grandfather) (now Poland)
Her paternal grandfather, Abraham Isaac Waremwasser, was born in Łódź (Congress Poland, Russian Empire) and emigrated to England. Her father, Lou Walters (born Louis Abraham Warmwater), was born in London and emigrated to New York on 28 August 1909.
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Łódź, Piotrków Governorate, Congress Poland (paternal grandfather) (now Poland). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.